The prior art is already aware of many different systems and components for use in determining the quantity of flow of fluid in various installations. That is, it is common practice to provide a meter which has a rotor responsive to the flow of the fluid past the rotor, and there is commonly provided a type of detector or sensor which senses the revolutions of the rotor, all for determining the quantity of fluid passing through the system. Examples of such prior art are found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,866,469 and 3,636,767. However, those prior art systems are complicated and expensive in their various components, and, more particularly, they do not utilize the principles employed in the present invention and especially with regard to utilizing radio frequency waves for the purpose of detecting the revolutions of a rotor and thus the quantity of fluid flowing through the meter. Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to achieve the aforementioned advantages and to particularly do so with system components which are readily available and inexpensively provided and which operate in a reliable and accurate manner for determining the quantity of flow of fluid through the meter.
More specifically, it is an object of this invention to provide a system which utilizes a meter having a housing and a rotor, both of which are made of inexpensive plastic material, and to have a radio frequency sensor which can be attached to the meter housing and to have the rotor support a metal piece, such as a staple, which disturbs the radio frequency wave and thus determines the revolutions of the rotor and therefore controls the quantity of fluid flowing through the meter.
Still further, it is an object and advantage of this invention to provide a flow meter system which will have a wide range of capacity so that it can show low flow and high flow rates of fluid flowing through the system, and will be accurate in all quantities of flow and through the wide range mentioned. Still further, the system of this invention will operate on either a gas or a liquid flowing therethrough for the purpose of measuring the quantity or rate of flow of the gas or liquid. Also, the fluid flow system of this invention can be safely used for measuring the flow of combustible gases or liquids.
Other objects and advantages will become apparent upon reading the following description in light of the accompanying drawings.